


【 不眠症 】

by firetan



Series: slow healing [1]
Category: Nurarihyon no Mago | Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Insomnia, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, basically Rikuo probably has some issues, sort of, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:39:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8809960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetan/pseuds/firetan
Summary: — insomnia — Rikuo can't sleep. Can't. Or won't? He doesn't know. It doesn't matter.He's just tired.





	

**_「哀しい夢を遮るものは / 自らの闇だって」_  
(Fast Forward - MONKEY MAJIK)**

**\---------------------------------**

He hadn't been sleeping.

Well, rather than he hadn't been sleeping, it was that he couldn't sleep. Couldn't. Or wouldn't? Did he even want to sleep — did yōkai need to sleep, or did they just survive on human fear and the essence of darkness itself? And alcohol — it was almost absurd, the amount of sake they went through on a regular basis. Perhaps it was the sake that kept them awake.

Rikuo didn't know. He didn't know at all. He just knew that he was starting to get really, really tired.

**\---------------**

It started the first time he had transformed since the Gagoze incident — the night where he had offended his sworn brother, and in the middle of visiting to make amends had found himself running into a fire to save his oldest and most important friend. He'd taken his yōkai form that night, and in that form realized just how beautiful the night was.

The main house had stayed up all night, celebrating, though he didn't remember anything the next day except that he felt a little woozy and very, very tired.

It was the same until the incident with Gyūki — he would transform at night, fight whoever had been threatening his friends and family, and stay up until dawn began to break. When he woke, he wouldn't have anything but vague impressions of the night before, and a quiet pulsing ache in the back of his head that not even a healthy breakfast and exercise and his best attempts at focusing could quell. He didn't let his grades slip, of course, and he continued to do his best to help around the school as a good human would — he just had to stop once in a while to lean against something and catch his breath or quell some strange dizziness that had set in.

Still, it wasn't too bad. Once he knew what was going on — once he had transformed consciously and fought Gyūki to prove his right to the Headship of the Nura clan — it was a bit easier to regulate. He'd take naps when he got home from school, so if he did have to transform in the night he would still have gotten enough rest. Some nights he did have to go out in his yōkai form, some he didn't, and that seemed about right. 

Then the Shikoku yōkai came.

Later, looking back on the timeline of events that had shaped his teenage years, Rikuo would suppose that was where it really started to go downhill. Before the Shikoku invasion, things hadn't been ideal, but he'd been sleeping enough and he'd been able to balance his human and yōkai lives without too much trouble. But once they came, once Hihi was killed and his grandfather left him in charge and Inugami attacked "him" at school — well, once everything had happened, sleep just wasn't important enough.

Zen — his reckless, rude, observant, dear friend — had noticed it first, noticed the bags under Rikuo's eyes and the slump of his shoulders when he spoke, and when he collapsed from exhaustion for the first time it was Zen who called him out on it. His friend ordered him to take better care of himself, and advised him on how — told him to build his own Hyakki Yakkō, with those yōkai who would follow him loyally no matter what and would be able to ease the weight on his still-young shoulders. Gratefully, Rikuo took the advice. 

In the back of his mind though, he knew he was really just treating the symptom, not the problem. His new Hyakki Yakkō eased the stress and made it easier to conserve his energy, but he still didn't sleep for the rest of the Shikoku invasion. There was just too much to do. The bags remained under his eyes in his human form, and his shoulders still slumped, but he meditated and borrowed his mother's makeup, and nobody else noticed anymore.

Things got a bit better once Tamazuki went back to Shikoku and life returned, more or less, to normal. It was only a short reprieve, however, because soon enough Yura's brothers came to Ukiyoe and fought with him and took his friend back to Kyōto to protect the seals that the revived Hagoromo-Gitsune was destroying one by one (along with Yura's family). He swore to go help, and his grandfather narrowed his eyes and knocked him out and shipped him off to the village of Tōno in a barrel. He woke up in an unfamiliar place where he swore to train until he was strong enough to survive in Kyōto, the yōkai capital.

Tōno was, ironically enough, the most sleep he got at all that year. Despite the rigorous and often painful training, the benefit of being in his yōkai form all the time was that he didn't feel the need to stay awake to take advantage of the time. Itaku and the Tōno yōkai, even though they were brutal teachers, allowed him time to sleep and recover because they knew he would need it to be at his fullest potential.

Once they reached Kyōto, of course, that was the end of it. There was simply too much to do — too many fights to win, techniques to learn, people to protect. He learned how to perform Matoi with Zen and decimated the Mt. Kurama tengu while he should have been resting, and he fought Tsuchigumo with Tsurara and Itaku when he should have been able to sleep. They stormed Nijō Castle and fought their way to the top, where Rikuo fought Hagoromo-Gitsune and saw memories of his father on the fragments of the Nue's muddy chrysalis. Seimei awakened and vanished into Hell to regain his strength, and Rikuo met Yamabuki Otome for the first time as she told him that she would have liked to have had a son like him.

This time, when they returned to Ukiyoe, Rikuo couldn't sleep. Not because he wanted to take full advantage of his yōkai form in the hours he could sustain it — no, this time it was the nightmares that kept him awake. His father's death — wide eyes, blood brushed gently onto Rikuo's cheek as he watched his father fall limply to the ground - was joined by Wakana and Yamabuki Otome, dying by a brutal blow to protect him from the monster that had awakened in the old capital. Both of his mothers, superimposed over one another over the image of Hagoromo Gitsune, because he now considered Yamabuki Otome a second mother in all but blood (it was the least she deserved, after all).

He would nap after school, and wake at night to fight the new yōkai that were appearing to terrorize his humans — because the people of Ukiyoe town were his, they were under his protection and he would not allow them to be harmed — and meditate in the mornings before school began. Slowly, the nightmares began to go away, and instead he would spend his nights training in the basement dojo of the main house. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Itaku visiting from Tōno to work on his offensive Hyōi techniques.

Those six months were almost ideal. Technically, he still wasn't sleeping enough, but he regained his energy and slowly ceased feeling dizzy and drained during the days. Zen visited and muttered his approval reluctantly, clearly still unhappy with Rikuo's lack of self-care but unable to say anything because at least he was getting better. He continued watching over his clan and spent more time with his remaining mother (he'd lost two parents, he'd make sure not to lose the one who was still there with him), and things almost felt right again.

The night of the Hundred Tales Hide-and-Seek managed to undo it all in six hours. 

Now there was no time to sleep, none at all. Ryūji brought a message from Akifusa, so they travelled through Tōno to meet him at Mt. Osore. Rikuo couldn't sleep that night, and even if the impromptu training hadn't kept him awake he still wouldn't have been able to close his eyes, because the nightmares had returned. There were some things that you didn't recover from quickly, and rotting alive happened to be one of them — days later, he was still feeling the pain of flesh falling away, and had to keep check his fingers and hands to remind himself that they were still attached.

Following the battle with Taisei of the Gokadoin house and the retrieval of Nuekirimaru, there was simply too much to do to even consider sleeping. Gone were the naps after school, the morning meditations — he met with his human friends, and Kana frowned at the dark circles he couldn't be bothered to hide anymore. He called all of the yōkai clans of Japan to meet with him, and many of them laughed at the way his shoulders slumped and his words broke off here and there in an exhausted yawn. 

Then they heard that Tsukumo Yakkō of Kyūshū was under attack, and once again he had to go and there was no time for rest. Zen caught him before they boarded Takarabune and pressed a bottle into his hands, ordering him to drink it or get some sleep on the way. The medicine tasted terrible, but for the first time in days Rikuo felt alert and awake, and that quite possibly saved his life as he and Yura fought Hiruko. Tamazuki and Dassai defeated the other two Gokadoin onmyōji, and they returned to the main house to regroup. He smiled at his sworn brother and thanked him quietly for the medicine while they prepared to leave for Kyōto once again.

Zen frowned and told him not to start relying on it before handing him another dose — _"for the battle,"_ he had muttered, _"because I can't be there myself."_

Rikuo tucked it safely inside his obi and nodded, because he couldn't sleep but that didn't mean he couldn't stay alert and he needed all of his wits about him for this final showdown. Once again, he boarded Takarabune with his loyal allies and friends and sailed for the yōkai capital, but this time it was to help them instead of fight them. 

It was only one night. He found it hard to believe, but the fate of the world was decided in that one night. They met with the youngest and strongest of the Keikain clan, who ran with them up the stairs of Aoi Castle in order to defend those they'd sworn to protect. One by one, his friends and allies split away to take care of their obstacles while he ran headfirst for the final enemy.

He faced Seimei and Hagoromo-Gitsune faced Seimei, and then they faced the Nue together; the yōkai who carried the last remains of Yamabuki Otome within her, and the quarter-yōkai whom she had chosen to call her son, together fighting the son who had betrayed his mother and all mothers before and after her in his quest for power and genocide. He drank the medicine Zen had given him, and wore a Hyakki Yakkō on his back as his sword cut through fate.

Together, they defeated the greatest foe there ever was, and together they travelled to the Hanyō village after the battle. The spirit of Yamabuki Otome joined her husband, and they embraced Rikuo as he finally slept in the healing waters of the lake beneath which they were buried, whispering to him how proud they were. 

Hagoromo-Gitsune returned to Kyōto and her loyal followers and friends, and Rikuo returned to Ukiyoe and his family. The danger was, finally, gone. Perhaps, now, he could finally rest.

**\---------------**

But he can't. Or won't? Rikuo can't tell the difference at this point, and he doesn't care anymore. It's one, two, four, eight, twelve months after the final battle, and he can't sleep more than an hour or two a night. He graduates from his middle school at the top of his class, starts high school alongside his friends, and continues meditating in the mornings. He transforms at night, sometimes to fight, sometimes to lead, sometimes just to think, but never to sleep.

At one month, he begins to feel afraid of closing his eyes. What little rest he gets is constantly plagued by nightmares and reminders. Pictures of what would have happened if he had failed — cities destroyed, homes burnt to the ground, his friends screaming in pain, his friends bleeding, his friends dying— Some nights he wakes with phantom pains burning in all of his old injuries and scars, some days he still has to pause and check to see if all of his body parts are still attached, and sometimes he finds himself watching the window with no memory of the last forty minutes.

Two months, and at school his friends watch and worry, but only Torii really has an inkling of understanding. She advises him to go to a therapist like she is, because she still wakes up sometimes and thinks she's trapped in that locker, or flinches and fades out of her eyes when something touches her back without warning. Rikuo smiles and shakes his head and asks Tsurara yet again what he had missed while he was Somewhere Else in his head.

At home, the older yōkai who have fought wars see the shadows behind his eyes while he leads meetings, and quietly whisper amongst themselves wondering if this will be what finally makes him unable to take up the mantle resting on his shoulders. Setsura doesn't tell her daughter to capture his lips, and instead warns Tsurara that he will need their support and won't say it, so she should be prepared to stand at his side.

Some nights, when he's not fighting or leading but thinking, Kubinashi and Kejōrō join him. The three of them eat, and Kubinashi plays cat's cradle with him (the way he did when Rikuo was very small) while Kejōrō tells them stories and brushes his hair with gentle hands. None of them say anything, but he knows even in the silence that they see him as their child just as much as he is Wakana's child and Rihan's child and Yamabuki Otome's child and Hagoromo-Gitsune's child, and sometimes it is simply enough to have parental figures who understand.

Wakana knows, but she doesn't understand. She runs her fingers through his hair when he wakes from a nightmare, and makes sure to always be there when he leaves for school and when he returns home, but she doesn't understand and she doesn't know what else to do.

When he visits Tōno for the first time, eight months after the battle, Itaku takes one look at Rikuo and demands to know why there are ghosts behind his eyes. He doesn't answer, and orders the anmitsu that he'd enjoyed so much the last time, but he doesn't have the stomach for it anymore. They train, and even though he can hold his own against them now, he finds himself slipping into old habits and mechanical defenses, and ignores the way Awashima and Reira look at him in concern. They rest in the hot springs, and he closes his eyes and pretends that he's asleep in the warmth of the water, because it feels almost like if he fell asleep here, he wouldn't dream of death.

Tamazuki comes by once or twice to visit and taunt, but he never mentions how tired Rikuo seems to look, because he's still holding onto the puppy that's grown into a beautiful large Akita and he knows what it's like to have ghosts hiding in your dreams. He likes to say he doesn't regret any of the events that gave him his scar, but every now and then he still wakes up and forgets that Inugami isn't there anymore.

His advisors remind him to rest before meetings, and he begins sitting on his bed and closing his eyes in the evenings after dinner so he at least has the energy to command those older than him who doubt his capability. It's not sleep, but it gets him through the night.

Sometimes, when he's awake and alone and thinking, he wonders if it would be better just to leave permanently. After all, the next time he might fail, and one of his dreams might come true. If he's not around, there won't be any reason to target his friends and family anymore. And if he does it, he'd finally be able to rest — and it's been twelve months, he wants nothing more now than to rest. He never goes further than pressing his sword against his skin, though, because he knows that he has responsibilities to uphold and people to protect, and it wouldn't be fair to make his grandfather lead yet again. It accidentally draws blood a few times, but he cleans them and wraps them and tells everyone that they're just from training.

They believe him.

Zen doesn't visit the main house for five months after the final battle, because he's busy rebuilding his Sect and sending aid to those clans who were heavily injured in the Cleansing (above all else, he is a healer, and no matter what he is determined to heal). When he finally does, Rikuo refuses to meet his eyes in either form (and this means nothing good because at least his yōkai form should be able to do something as easy as that). It's three more visits and over a year after the battle before he finally finds Rikuo at night, sitting cross-legged on his futon with his head in his hands and a thin line of blood running down the side of one arm.

He doesn't say anything and Zen doesn't ask, just sighs and cleans the cut far too fresh to be from a training session, wrapping it carefully and quietly questioning when Rikuo stopped being able to look him in the eyes.

 _"You're always one of the first to die."_ He says, and that's how Zen finds out that he's been having nightmares for months and months and a year that keep him from sleeping. _"And when you do, I'm never there."_ Because Zen had been left behind for the final battle and unlike with those who had gone to Kyōto, Rikuo wouldn't have known whether he lived or died until he finally returned from the Hanyō village.

Zen grunts and tells him to sleep, promises to stay there until the morning so if a nightmare comes there will be somewhere there when he wakes up, and Rikuo discovers that he can sleep if there's someone there with him. Zen tells Tsurara, who tells the rest of the main house, and after that day there's always someone there to keep him company at night.

Slowly, the shadows start to disappear from his eyes. The trauma is still there, he still has phantom pains and phantom numbness and sometimes disassociates and has to ask his friends what he missed, but he doesn't feel like he should leave as much, and he starts to feel stronger again.

He can finally rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay guys I literally wrote this in like one day. And I got the idea right before bed so it's a little shitty.
> 
> Look, the thing is, Rikuo went through a LOT OF SHIT for someone his age. Like, he's literally thirteen - I don't care that he's a quarter yōkai and hella powerful and a fantastic leader and all that, he's also just a kid and going through all of the battles and stuff that's happened to him is going to leave some scars. He literally rotted alive, for crying out loud! Tell me that wouldn't be a fucking traumatic experience, okay?
> 
> Anyways, the idea actually just started as 'okay, if he's in his yōkai form at night, when the hell is he sleeping?' and kind of grew from there.
> 
> Sorry for any errors and whatnot - I'm not a great writer, and this is un-beta'd! 
> 
> Please comment if you have anything to say! ^^ It would make me happy!


End file.
